Would you “save the date” for your own break up? | Source: ShutterStock

Most days, I don’t like thinking about breaking up because it’s kind of a downer, but that’s exactly what a recent article in Glamour got me thinking about. The piece that struck my interest was about couples who set a breakup date in the future to officially be over.

The interviewed couples had mixed results – it worked out for some and didn’t work out for others. But what do I think about setting breakup dates? Ehhh, I don’t think they’re a great idea.

I just feel like I could never do it. I think part of it goes all the way back to my whole philosophy on dating. If I don’t see something that’s going to last for the foreseeable future, I don’t really have time for it. And setting a date to breakup is basically putting an expiration on that “foreseeable future.”

I feel like if you know you’re going to break up, why don’t you just break up now? That way, you can both start moving on to new things. On the flip side, if there’s any lingering desire to not break up that’s making you set a date in the future rather than right now, I feel like you should take it as a sign to at least keep going with what you have without setting a deadline.

But let me issue a disclaimer by saying that I don’t have firsthand experience with this sort of breakup approach. However, I know a few people that actually did seem to plan their breakup in advance.

I mean, I’m not privy to the exact details of their relationships, but I don’t think they sat down with a calendar and circled an official date. It was more of an agreed upon future breakup once a big moment had been reached – things like graduation, study abroad, someone moving, the end of summer, you get the idea. Basically, the assumption was they would keep dating up until that point and then that would be it as they went their separate ways.

In those instances, I get why they wanted to do it. Especially as someone who toughed out long-distance relationships, I understand the mentality of enjoying the presen, but relieving you both of the stress of trying to keep it together once you face a big change.

I guess it’s better that they talked about it, rather than one person just planning on dropping a planned breakup announcement out of nowhere thinking they were on the same page about where things were headed. Still, I feel like if I were in their shoes, I would have wanted to either be done as soon as I knew it wasn’t going anywhere or at least seen if things would work in a less than ideal situation rather than potentially regretting breaking up prematurely.

I guess it just brings up a lot of questions for me. Like, if the breakup date is approaching, can you start being on the lookout for new guys when you go out? Doesn’t that sort of blur the lines of your relationship commitment? It just feels like a limbo space where there may not be a lot of concrete definition. At least for me, I like to relationship definitions.

All that said, everyone has a different approach to relationships, so I might be missing something about breakup dates. Clearly some of the people interviewed in Glamour felt like it worked for them, and in the end, I guess that’s all that matters. My fear is just that a couple would set a breakup date feeling like they “have to” breakup for some reason or they have FOBU and don’t want to call it quits when it’s not working. Neither of those seem like particularly positive options to me.

All in all, we can’t shield ourselves from the reality of break ups in life, so I guess finding a way that minimizes the sting can be an important precaution. I just know that for me, setting a future date to call it quits probably isn’t it.

How do you know when to break up with someone? Have you and your significant other ever set a breakup date? Would you ever set a date to break up with someone? Tell us in the comments!

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